Master and Commander is about a British ship being attack by a superior French one and a man’s obsession with getting revenge. He goes after the French vessel across thousands of miles of sea which resulted in a final showdown. However, this time the British was the victor. Throughout the movie, I was reminded of some of the material that we have read in class. When Capt. Aubrey received a model of the French vessel he seemed impressed with it just like the Ottoman Sultan did in Years of Rice and Salt Book 7. The French ship was obviously advanced for that time and he even referred to it as “modern technology”. I never realized how much it took to run a ship and watching the movie I noticed that the crew consisted of alot of men. I also noticed how the sailors were very superstitious, blaming that one person because they did not have any wind. I thought it was interesting how the captain was teaching the younger ones about astronomy. He was teaching them about zenith and that when the sun is directly above it is noon.
When the doctor was operating of the man’s brain was pretty amusing. Obviously surgery had not been seen by many and all the sailors were watching forming a type of autopsy theater. When it came time to take out the larger French ship, the British strategy was to take out the hull. I was reminded again of Book 7 and how the Sultan commented about if he punctured a whole in the hull of the steel ship it would sink.
Overall I liked the movie and thought that it was very good.
